Microsoft Excel now uses AI to auto-suggest formulas in real time

Wouldn’t it be great if you could be an Excel wizard without putting in all the time and effort needed to learn how to get around Excel and make it do what you want it to do? Formulas are one of the biggest pain points, and Microsoft is aware of that. That’s why Microsoft is adding a new AI feature to Excel that eases all of that for you.

The new feature is called formula completion and it’s powered by AI models to “proactively suggest and autocomplete formulas as soon as you type ‘=’,” according to a new Microsoft Excel blog post.

Gone are the days of figuring out how to select the right cells, remembering the right formulas to use, referencing the right arguments and data sources, and debugging broken syntax.

As soon as you type “=” into a cell, the AI models behind Excel analyze the context and makeup of the current workbook to predict what you’re trying to do and generate one or more suggested formulas to get that done. Each suggestion comes with a handy preview and a description of what it’s aiming to accomplish in plain language. Furthermore, as you keep typing more characters into the formula field, Excel will continuously update its suggestions to better match your intentions.

Formula completion can handle varying workbook complexities and it’s able to do things like calculate financial data, generate REGEX statements, and even create dynamic formulas. But as of this writing, formula completion is unable to reference other workbooks.

Formula completion in Microsoft Excel is currently rolling out to Copilot users on Excel Web for US English only. Formula completion for Excel Desktop and other languages will come at a later date.

Further reading: Microsoft fixes the worst con of Excel pivot tables